The field of the invention is blow molding machinery and the invention relates more particularly to machinery for automatically removing the flashing from blow molded, plastic objects.
During the blow molding process, flashing is often molded along a portion of the parting line of the molded object. The flashing is held to the part by a thin web and is designed to be knocked from the object after the object has been removed from the mold. Although this can be carried out by hand, it is preferably done automatically. The most commonly used machine for this purpose involves a machine utilizing buckets which support an object in a horizontal position in a cavity, and a cutting tool is driven through openings in the bucket thereby driving the flashing away from the object. Such machines are typically noisy and relatively slow in operation. Typically, such machines operate at a rate of twenty to thirty objects per minute and in order to keep up with a blow molding operation which molds sixty objects per minute, two or three cavities must be formed in each bucket. Also, the object, once deflashed, must be repositioned in a vertical manner so that further operations, such as leak detecting, flaming, labeling and cameras for checking can be carried out.